Crown duels

Maria Stuarda makes for lame ‘contemporary’ drama

The Royal Opera’s new production of Maria Stuarda has me wondering whether there is any point in updating operas or plays about specific historical characters in more or less fixed period settings. The psychological depths of, say, Verdi’s Don Carlos might gain from a modern “directors’ theatre” slant, but Donizetti’s 1835 prima-donna bitchfest — the feuding queens are unhistorical love rivals as well as political enemies — doesn’t resonate as drama of the intellect today. Judging by the soaraway success of the RSC’s period dramas Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, it seems a barking decision by the RO management. Patrice Caurier, Moshe Leiser and their design team were rudely booed at their bow. Maria Stuarda is probably not worth the attention of cutting-edge directors, and these two definitely aren’t those.

If the Caurier/Leiser approach had been something provocative, like, say, Christof Loy’s Elizabeth-as-Thatcher, armed with a handbag, in a Munich